Pluto
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David Bowie from the movie Laberinth
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March 29th, 2018
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I'm not a scientist and to go into too much detail about crystals and crystallization becomes tedious and unnecessary so I will speak in broad general terms.
Lately I've been trying to better understand spectroscopic signatures of crystallized water ice, the process of it becoming amorphous and the effect ammonia plays so as to better understand these features and their related time frames taking place on the satellites of Pluto. After writing this page I realized, everything is a function of temperature and temperature is a function of pressure. |
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Everything that exits is a function of pressure. All the matter of the universe was created in stars that collapsed creating ever increasing pressures which in turn produced increased temperatures and more complex elements. All elements are formed from hydrogen gas pressed into forming other elements. Variations in pressure shape everything. Temperature is a byproduct of pressure. Life is a byproduct of pressure. My existence is a byproduct of pressure.
Pressure is everything or should I say everything that exists is an expression of the pressure it has experienced.
Why has it taken me so long to understand this most basic metaphysical fact?
Pressure is everything or should I say everything that exists is an expression of the pressure it has experienced.
Why has it taken me so long to understand this most basic metaphysical fact?
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Matter is shaped by pressure and temperature. Depending on the temperature and pressure, matter can exist in any of three states solid, liquid or gas.
It's not intuitive to think of an object like a diamond as frozen carbon which has been heated, pressurized then frozen into a crystal but like all crystals, diamonds are the frozen version of tempered compressed molecules. |
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Heat diamonds enough and they will liquefy, once that takes place they will no longer be diamond as they would no longer maintain a crystalline structure rather their molecules would be in an amorphous noncrystalized or undefined pattern.
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Amethyst crystals from Toldinho Mine, Santa Catarina, Brazil Photo: Mardani Fine Minerals
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Gorgeous Green Octahedral Fluorite Cluster
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Crystal Cave Naica Mexico was once filled with water. Its so hot scientists use special ice cooled suits and can only stay for 20 minutes
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Crystals are molecules that accumulate (primarily within an amorphous fluid like water or lava) to form a rigid patterned structure aka a lattice, whereas, amorphous structures have no pattern or organized form. Diamonds are diamonds because of their carbon based 4 bond crystal structure which was created while at particular temperatures and pressures.
Carbon's phase transition points
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Change those temperatures and pressures enough and the structural bonds change forming something like a 3 bonded structure called graphite or an amorphous non structure called liquid carbon or take a blow torch to a diamond and you produce a carbon gas bonded with two oxygen's (carbon dioxide CO2). Cool CO2 with light pressure and it becomes another form of crystallized frozen ice called dry ice. Without enough pressure dry ice converts directly from a solid to gas without being able to amorphize into a liquid. Diamonds can't exist as a gas or a liquid any more than crystallized H2O ice can be considered ice when it melts to its amorphous state called water or its gaseous state called vapor. |
When temperature and pressure change the structure of matter, it's molecules, rearrange transforming it to something different.
H2O is one of the more versatile compounds and has at least 16 different known structural forms.
H2O is one of the more versatile compounds and has at least 16 different known structural forms.
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When H2O is amorphous or without form we usually refer to it as water and pure H2O water does not conduct electricity. Minerals dissolve into water which then allow electrical current to flow. Various amounts and types of minerals produce more or less electron movement or conductivity in H2O.
Ice 1h has a hexagonal (hence the h) structure and is the ice we are all familiar with. It is noted in Wiki that the next form of ice is 1c which school text books claim has a cubic structure and is formed at colder temperatures (not pressures) than 1h. This is where things start to get tricky. The 1c form of ice may not actually be cubic |
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Simon Hadlington, A question mark over cubic ice’s existence, Phys.org, 9 January 2012.
Chemistry textbooks may have to be rewritten after scientists in the UK showed that an exotic type of ice crystal formed from supercooled water has probably been misidentified and might not exist.
A team led by Benjamin Murray at the University of Leeds has carried out work that suggests that cubic ice may not in fact exist. The researchers searched for cubic ice by suspending water droplets in oil and gradually cooling them to -40 °C while observing the X-ray diffraction pattern of the resulting crystals. “We modelled the diffraction pattern we obtained and compared it to perfect cubic and perfect hexagonal ice, and it was clearly neither of them,” Murray says. “Nor is it merely a mixture of the two. Rather it is something quite distinct.”
Analysis of the diffraction data shows that in the ice crystals the stacking of the atomic layers is disordered. ’The crystals that form have randomly stacked layers of cubic and hexagonal sequences,’ Murray says. ’As each new layer is added, there is a 50% probability of it being either hexagonal or cubic.’ The result is a novel, metastable form of ice with a stacking-disordered structure.
Re-examination of what had previously been identified as cubic ice suggests that this was stacking-disordered structures too, Murray says. ’Cubic ice may not exist.’
Simple H2O is not as well understood as you might think.
Chemistry textbooks may have to be rewritten after scientists in the UK showed that an exotic type of ice crystal formed from supercooled water has probably been misidentified and might not exist.
A team led by Benjamin Murray at the University of Leeds has carried out work that suggests that cubic ice may not in fact exist. The researchers searched for cubic ice by suspending water droplets in oil and gradually cooling them to -40 °C while observing the X-ray diffraction pattern of the resulting crystals. “We modelled the diffraction pattern we obtained and compared it to perfect cubic and perfect hexagonal ice, and it was clearly neither of them,” Murray says. “Nor is it merely a mixture of the two. Rather it is something quite distinct.”
Analysis of the diffraction data shows that in the ice crystals the stacking of the atomic layers is disordered. ’The crystals that form have randomly stacked layers of cubic and hexagonal sequences,’ Murray says. ’As each new layer is added, there is a 50% probability of it being either hexagonal or cubic.’ The result is a novel, metastable form of ice with a stacking-disordered structure.
Re-examination of what had previously been identified as cubic ice suggests that this was stacking-disordered structures too, Murray says. ’Cubic ice may not exist.’
Simple H2O is not as well understood as you might think.
Sixteen H2O phase transition points
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Not only is the cubic structure of 1c ice questionable but when observing crystalline ice on distant moons via spectroscopy the process of interpreting the data is not simple and straightforward.
Again depending on temperature and pressure, the signature of ice blended with other substances like ammonia or methane can shift the amplitude and frequency of the absorption lines leaving some room for misinterpretation. I'm not smart enough to actually challenge the scientists spectroscopic interpretations and findings but I know there is room for error in the conclusions drawn. |
The lattice structure of ice 2 forms at higher pressures than ice 1h or 1c. The two variants of ice 1 are developed by lowered temperatures at 1 bar of atmosphere while ice 2, 3 and 5 are formed mostly by increased pressure. Ice 2 is the highly compressed ice we think exists deep inside icy moons. Since it is highly compressed, it has different structural properties than Ice 1.
Here's a pristine ideal spectroscopic graph of water ice 1 at 77 K created in a lab under controlled conditions in 2007 (11 years ago).
Here's a pristine ideal spectroscopic graph of water ice 1 at 77 K created in a lab under controlled conditions in 2007 (11 years ago).
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Ten to fifteen years ago astronomical spectroscopic data was more noisy and less well understood and many of the papers written on the crystalline and ammonia ices were written with these knowledge constraints.
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The spectral line of absorption of water takes a serious dip at 1.5 and 2 microns. If that water is frozen it also has a little dip at 1.65 microns (left graph). Water laden ammonia (ammonia hydrates) take an additional dip at 2.21 um (right graph). Depending on temperature and its mixture with other substances like ammonia the dips can shift slightly left or right. On top of that the data obtained from telescopes have noise (they are very spiky). Many papers will smooth out the spikes by averaging the highs and lows over multiple data points to produce a single line for interpretive purposes this process can shift the dips slightly.
(left). The near-infrared spectrum of Pluto. The histogrammed points give the data, scaled to a value of unity at a wavelength of 1.5 μm, and the smooth line is a reflectance spectrum of pure methane ice from Fink and Sill (7). The surface of Pluto is also known to contain N2 and CO, but the weak spectral features due to these ices are not readily visible at this spectral resolution. Fig. 3 (right). The near-infrared geometric albedo spectrum of Charon. The histogram gives the data, which has been scaled to the geometric albedo of Charon derived by Roush (3). The dashed line shows a model consisting of only water ice and a dark neutral absorber. The solid line is a model in which ammonia and ammonia hydrate ices have been added to the water ice and neutral absorber
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The above left image is the smoothed spectral signature of methane on Pluto while the right image is a signature of frozen water with ammonia compared to a smooth model line.
In the graph to the right you can see how close but certainly not perfectly matched the signature of laboratory mixed methane is to Pluto and object 2005 FY9. Methane's (CH4) most notable signature dip occurs at 2.3 microns. While there is room for error and in the past reading and understanding these signatures was difficult, today scientists have a much better handle on interpreting these spectral lines of absorption but many of the papers I've read were written during this time of transitional knowledge and so some make interpretive conclusions with potential errors. |
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Below is the tell tale sign of Charon's 1.5 um, 1.65 um and 2.0 um dip signature of crystallized water ice. Crystallized water ice mixed with ammonia takes an additional small dip at 2.21 um.
Below is a table I created to show some comparisons between various sized Transneptunian Objects (TNO) and their spectral lines of absorption. TNO's do display some common patterns. TNO's larger than approximately 700-800 km (I say approximately because distance from the Sun affects temperature and temperature effects escape rates of gasses) have enough gravitational mass to keep ahold of their more volatile surface gasses like methane nitrogen and carbon monoxide, whereas, medium sized TNO's tend to loose these surface volatile gasses to space. Larger objects tend to be brighter (high albedo) indicating they are actively resurfaced while medium objects tend to contain ammonia hydrates with regolith (dusty darker albedo) covered surfaces. Small TNO's tend to have amorphous water ice while medium objects tend to be crystalline.
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This presents a point of confusion for me as medium to small objects like Charon are too small to retain volatile gasses as an atmosphere where tholins are often suggested to form. Pluto and Jupiter moon Titan tholins are theoretically created in the atmosphere then it falls onto the surface.
Bodies like Quaoar (675 km), Sedna (500 km), 1994-JR1 (250 km), MU69 aka Ultima Thule (18-41 km) and the zit on Nix are red with tholins but they are too small to keep an atmosphere of gasses. I explain Nix's zit as the result of a chunk that was knocked off Pluto or ejected by triple point explosive pressures if the impactor didn't come from Pluto then how could something that small become covered in red tholin? All these objects are small red bodies too small to retain volatile's from which tholin is hypothesized to develop from atmospheric gasses and sunlight radiation. Tholin's are a large variety of complex hydrocarbons that often form a brown orange or red gunk created from irradiation by solar wind, UV photons, and cosmic rays of volatile gasses like methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO) and ammonia (NH3). |
Nix roughly 40 km with its red tholin impact zit
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Objects in resonance with Neptune are brighter and mostly denser than nonresonant objects
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If small bodies can't hold onto these gasses, how are they getting covered in red tholin?
In the case of Nix which is a really small object approximately 40 to 50 km (25 - 30 mi) we see a smaller red scar from an impacting body that left behind a deposit of tholin. This impactor may have been between 1-5 km leaving behind a 15 kilometer red tholin impact scar. An object this small can't hold onto volatile gasses. |
I have a possible scenario to explain tholin on non atmospheric small objects which are far from the Sun with cold temperatures and pressures. This scenario comes from my observations of Saturn's moon Hyperion. Hyperion's radius is 135 km compared to Enceladus (another Saturn moon) which itself is a mere 252 km. Hyperion's 0.544 g/cm3 density is about half that of water and because of the vacuum of space is much less dense than ice 1h on Earth which is 0.917. Hyperion is about half the size of Enceladus which itself has a density 1.609 g/cm3.
Why is Enceladus so dense compared to Hyperion?
Tidal flex energy heats Enceladus but does not exist at Hyperion.
Above is the position of Enceladus, extended far beyond this image is the orbit of Hyperion.
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But there's more to this moon than what initially meets the eye. Hyperion is not large or massive enough to have pulled itself into hydrostatic equilibrium (round).
A body needs to have a radius of at least 200 km to have a chance of being round, Hyperion is 135 km. Hyperion looks like a sponge and at first glance it would be easy to assume all these craters are formed by impacts. 
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Here's the scale of Hyperion's orbit compared to Enceladus. |
In this below image of Hyperion `you can see some areas that are darker than others looking like shadows. These dark areas are dust or gravel or carbon or simply something heavier and darker than the surrounding ices. The darker material absorbs more heat energy from the Sun initiating some degree of concentrated sublimation in the ices. Some of the ice is water but some ices are more porous and volatile than water ice. As the more dense dark material heats, it cuts out divots in the porous ices creating land or ice slides. Also take notice of the hundreds of tiny impact dots scattered everywhere. This is how new ice, gravel or dust arrives on the surface.
When you look closely at these craters you can see land slides with gravel accumulated at the base of the ice slide.
What I like most about this next image is that you can see the dusty grains or gravel on the outer upper lips of the craters. This darker material has not yet carved out a crater.
The below closeup off Hyperion shows an elevated range of rigid shinny ice with slightly darker regolith dust particles creating alluvial fans at the base of these peaks. As the regolith dust falls down the slopes fresh volatile ices are exposed. These newly exposed volatile ices are bright and sublimate (evaporate) allowing more regolith dust to drop inward creating land slides or alluvial fan deposits.
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This is Hyperion in true color. Its not really gray or red its sorta a mix between gray and brown. Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) orbit the Sun between 40-50 AU (Earth distance to Sun = 1 Astronomical Unit or 1 AU) and classical KBO are red, conversely moons like Hyperion are only about 9.5 AU and most lean towards gray or neutral. Ice is considered neutral in color. If small bodies similar to Hyperion find themselves forming in the Kuiper Belt region they may be exposed to just the right amount of sunlight (temperature + radiation) to warm more dense dark colored materials on the surface creating slowly forming cratered pits. As craters are created they slowly expose subsurface layers of trapped volatile gasses like CH4, CO and NH3. |
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These frozen gasses would slowly get exposed to cosmic and solar radiation producing tholin residue without requiring an atmosphere or a strong enough gravity to retain those volatile gasses. Perhaps as the water ice creates a transparent skin atop the more volatile gasses, the Sun's radiation is able to initiate the tholin building process. If the transition from volatile gas to complex red hydrocarbons is slow enough, the produced tholin would remain behind as the volatile gasses sublimate into space.
Given the proper temperature zone these small bodies could uniquely form complex hydrocarbons whereas other temperature zones like Pluto's that varies up and down or Saturn's moon Titan nearer to the Sun utilize atmospheric conditions to produce tholins. Objects near to the Sun like most of Saturn or Jupiter's moons would sublimate the volatiles too quickly and loose them to space lacking the time needed to form tholins from near surface frozen gasses.
In other words ice moons nearer to the Sun need to be large enough to hang onto their gasses as an atmosphere to form tholins. Small objects farther from the Sun are colder and sublimate slower so the tholin producing process takes place near to or on the surface before the volatiles have time to escape to space. In both cases the heavier tholins are left behind on the surface.
This could explain Charon;s lack of tholin as it was once closer to the sun facing higher levels of radiation unable to retain an atmosphere needed for tholin production but was latter pushed by Neptune to a higher orbit where now its hard water ice shell can resist the suns weaker radiation where its now not able to break through the hard water ice layer.
Given the proper temperature zone these small bodies could uniquely form complex hydrocarbons whereas other temperature zones like Pluto's that varies up and down or Saturn's moon Titan nearer to the Sun utilize atmospheric conditions to produce tholins. Objects near to the Sun like most of Saturn or Jupiter's moons would sublimate the volatiles too quickly and loose them to space lacking the time needed to form tholins from near surface frozen gasses.
In other words ice moons nearer to the Sun need to be large enough to hang onto their gasses as an atmosphere to form tholins. Small objects farther from the Sun are colder and sublimate slower so the tholin producing process takes place near to or on the surface before the volatiles have time to escape to space. In both cases the heavier tholins are left behind on the surface.
This could explain Charon;s lack of tholin as it was once closer to the sun facing higher levels of radiation unable to retain an atmosphere needed for tholin production but was latter pushed by Neptune to a higher orbit where now its hard water ice shell can resist the suns weaker radiation where its now not able to break through the hard water ice layer.
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Classical Kuiper Belt objects reside in a doughnut shaped ring around the Sun between 40 and 50 AU, inclined less than 5 degrees to the ecliptic plane and are red. These objects are called cold classical objects because of their less than 5 degree orbital inclination. |
image by Randy Russell
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Hot objects on the other hand are inclined between 5 and 40 degrees to the ecliptic plane and have orbits as eccentric as 0.85 and are a mix of colors from red to gray. Hot objects are perturbed by Neptune into a more random scattered pattern.
The cold classical KBO objects are not perturbed by Neptune and are red,
The cold classical KBO objects are not perturbed by Neptune and are red,
Triton true color
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The moons of the giant planets are primarily gray while the cold KBO are primarily red but the Neptune hot scattered disk objects are a mix of the two.
The scattered disk is so named because these are thought to be Neptune scattered objects. When Neptune migrated outward it perturbed gray objects out to the 30 to 50 AU zone but in mostly resonant patterns and inclined orbits, it also disturbed the inner portion of the red cold classical Kuiper Belt disk. This created a scattered disk of mixed gray objects that at one time resided between 15 to 25 AU but are now scattered into inclined eccentric orbits along with some cold red classical KBO. This further strengthens my (page 66) Triton/Pluto/Charon eccentric dance scenario, Charon is a gray object scattered by Neptune just as Pluto was once a cold classical KBO. Triton is reddish brown just like Pluto. |
Pluto true color
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In a lab under controlled conditions tholins can be created in a matter of hours so we aren't necessarily looking at millions or billions of years for these processes to take place but at 30 to 50 AU from the Sun the tholin producing time scales would be significantly extended.
One or two billion years ago the Sun's output energy was lower than it is today and that may have been the perfect condition for objects in the Kuiper Belt to slowly sublimate away ices exposing their more volatile subsurface gasses in turn forming tholins. Back to spectroscopy. |
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| the_compositions_of_kuiper_belt_objects_dec_2011mike_brown_---_1112.2764.pdf |
Spectra of four of the largest and most volatile rich KBOs. The prominent CH4 absorption
lines can be seen on all objects. The weaker CO and N2 lines can only be detected on Pluto.
Charon's temperature is shown to be 41 K but according to other papers is closer to 35 K. Sedna is listed with a diameter of 1,300 km (650 km radius) and a temperature of 24 K but on Wiki Sedna's diameter is listed at 995 km and its temperature is 12 K.
In either case temperature seems to be a decisive factor in retaining volatiles. Even if Sedna has a diameter of 995 km (557 km radius) it would still be able to hold onto its methane because of its cold temperature. |
These are the spectral lines of Sedna, Makemake, Pluto and Eris from the above downloadable paper written by Michael Brown the self proclaimed "Pluto Killer".
Mike Brown is a smart fella, he's currently trying to find "Planet X" but is running out of places to look. Mike's paper is worth a read. In this paper he compares various features on various KBO's. Sedna is estimated to have a radius of 500 km, however, Mike estimates Sedna's radius to be 650 km. This fact breaks the general rule of medium bodies not being able to hold on to the volatile ice methane. According to Wiki, Sedna is smaller than Charon (606 km), Charon is assumed to have lost its methane as a result of its size yet Sedna apparently contains methane. Methane's strongest deepest spectral dip is at 2.3 um 
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While size (gravitational pressure) and temperature seems to be a factor in whether or not ammonia hydrates and methane exist on the surface of bodies between 400 and 800 km that point seems to be mute when it comes to bodies the size of Pluto's small moons Styx, Nix and Hydra as they are confirmed to have ammonia hydrates on them.
Charon is a crystallized or crystal ball of ice and is considered a medium sized TNO with the 2.21 um water laden ammonia signature but only on its leading hemisphere.
Charon is a crystallized or crystal ball of ice and is considered a medium sized TNO with the 2.21 um water laden ammonia signature but only on its leading hemisphere.
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According to Jason Cook, the crystallized structure of Charon's surface indicates it's surface ice is less than 100,000 years old because of its 35 K temperature. This observation was made pre-flyby.
The smooth nature of the southern hemisphere demonstrates it went through a catastrophic process of resurfacing. The raised diagonal ridge (Serenity Chasma) along with the 6 mile lower plane to the south (Vulcan Planum (its actually a Planitia, raised planes are planum's, lower planes are planitia's)) separating the Northern Hemisphere from the South indicates the ridge line itself was not the only place subsurface fluid expelled onto the surface. If fluid had expelled only from this diagonal crack it would mound upwards on both edges as we see on other moons like Enceladus or Europa. |
Serenity Chasma
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I'm not saying subsurface fluids didn't flow from Serenity Chasma. I'm saying its not the only place fluid expelled onto the surface. If it had been a single point of fluid pressure release, it would be bounded by ridges on both sides like we see on Enceladus.
Tiger Stripe cracks on Saturn's moon Enceladus bounded on both edges by raised ridges
I like the below image of Enceladus because it shows two clearly visible and completely different aged land features. To the northeast the surface is heavily cratered then there is a distinct line that separates the southwestern portion which has no impacts. Enceladus' surface ice appears to be softer than Charon's as the older surface with impacts are more viscously relaxed. The southeastern portion appears to have wrinkles or ripples suggesting this whole section was softened enough by internal heat to completely experience viscous relaxation then crinkle as it froze hard.
While both these NE vs SW surfaces display a similarity to Charon they also look totally different. Enceladus appears to have experienced much more internal heat (from tidal flex) relative to its size. Enceladus (252 km) is about two and half times smaller than Charon (606 km) and certainly could not be heated by radiogenic processes with its rock mass ratio of 59% and core radius of 166 km but Enceladus does displays similar large scale crustal relaxation features suggesting to me that they both experienced similar processes but at different energy levels.
Enceladus shows that large scale viscous relaxation takes place from tidal flex energy.
No mineral deposits on the surface of either indicates low tidal flex energies but softened smooth large sections indicate enough tidal flex occurred to alter vast surface area's.
In this image north is up and the tiger stripes are on the opposite side of Enceladus. This is the anti-Saturn side.
Charon's northern hemisphere is far more jagged and structurally rigid with a deeper crust while its southern hemisphere is also smoother than the above large section of Enceladus. while there are analogous similarities, there are vast differences in their terrain's.
Some scientists wrote this paper The Contraction/Expansion History of Charon with implications for its Planetary Scale Tectonic Belt
explaining how they think Charon ripped apart at the diagonal crack in a triple repeated expansion contraction process. It uses internal radiogenic heat as an explanation to account for the elevation of the crack at Serenity Chasma but it completely misses the mark in explaining the smooth southern hemisphere. Even though they refer to their theory as circularization it is in fact one of in-situ which they say is the least likely scenario to produce a differentiated core.
While surface crystallized water ice could help support my idea of an entire catastrophic disruption to the southern plain, for me, 100,000 years seems to be too recent which is the time frame for newly formed ice's to remain crystalline (unless I misunderstand something). But there's more to it than simply time, temperature also plays a big role. I'm inclined to think this southern hemisphere resurfacing process took place further back in time.
Some scientists suggest, another potential scenario to explain crystallized ice, its called gouging or excavation by impacts. In essence an impactor carves out a hole from which heated ice material is expelled and scattered on the surface converting into a crystallized form. But this would leave large patches of crystallized spots with vast voids between them and the frequency of impacts is too low for this to explain the crystallized ice.
Most papers on the subject tend to be dated pre-New Horizons flyby. Because of this most assume cryovolcanism is the mechanism driving this process. But we now know Charon is dead or at least there are no signs of cryovolcanoes anywhere on Charon so cryovolcanism is ruled out. Some scientists have suggested ammonia is squeezed up from below or sorta oozes up near the surface of Charon because of internal pressures and then impacts expose this ammonia which lies just below the surface regolith. but that theory doesn't hold true in light of images where two nearby impact craters show differing results. In addition to Charon we also know 3 of the 4 smaller 6-30 mi satellites Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra have crystallized surfaces along with ammonia hydrates. There is no mechanism for subsurface renewal (no oozing, no internal pressure, no cryovulcanism) on these small moons so in these cases cryovolcanism is definitely ruled out.
A seemingly regular pattern found among 400-800 km radius bodies is that along with having crystallized water ice they also often have ammonia hydrates. Another commonly expressed concept to explain the crystallized ice, is that micrometeorites are heating the surfaces melting the ice quickly forming a crystalline structure. If this were the case there wouldn't be any ammonia hydrates as the ammonia is very volatile and would be evaporated away more vigorously from the micrometeorite impacts than crystallized water would be formed.
Another possible explanation is found in this paper HST/NICMOS spectroscopy of Charon's leading and trailing hemispheres written September 2000 was hypotheszing a concept to explain observed spectral lines from Charon which indicated Charon had ammonia on its leading orbital hemisphere but not on the trailing hemisphere. The spectra also indicated Charon had crystallized water ice on both the leading and trailing hemisphere.
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It was hypothesized the nitrogen atmosphere of Pluto was enveloping both planets contributing to the crystallized ice and adding ammonia.
It was thought the nitrogen (N2) from Pluto's atmosphere was broken down by UV light to become two separate (N)itrogen elements which recombined with the water ice's (H2O) hydrogen on Charon to make NH3. But this doesn't add up, why would the entire sphere of water ice on Charon be crystallized while only the leading hemisphere retain the more volatile ammonia and that ammonia only appears in blotches |
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As they were only able to view Pluto/Charon from ground based telescopes or Hubble in 2000 this seemed like a pretty good synopsis. The problem for this hypothesis now is that we flew past Charon and can see how ammonia is splattered in blobs around Charon like someone shot paint balls at it.
Atmospherically deposited nitrogen producing ammonia would be more evenly dispersed. This leads me back to my original thought that the ammonia is being ejected off Pluto every 2.8 myr when it heats up enough for nitrogen to reach its triple point at which time nitrogen acts explosively. |
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Organa and Skywalker craters appear to have been created by a hard water ice impactor evidenced by the white spiky outward radiating straight lines whereas in other locations there are lots of ammonia hydrate blobs speckled more gently onto the surface as if loosely held together fluid ammonia was sprinkled onto the surface. Organa with all its ammonia globular splatter patterns over laid on top of a spiky white radial web like zone indicates a hard water ice object covered in ammonia gouged out the hole while depositing blobs of ammonia. Skywalker on the other hand has simply been hit by a hard water ice object that was not covered in ammonia.
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It is likely all the sublimation pits on the surface of Sputnik Planitia are the remnants of ejected nitrogen paint balls fired into space during a time 0.8 mya when Pluto's atmospheric pressure was high enough for nitrogen to reach its explosive triple point. |
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Objects above visible (V) red (R) of 0.5 are considered red while objects below 0.5 tend to be considered gray, blue or neutral
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Color indices are simple measures of the differences in the apparent magnitude of an object seen through blue (B), visible (V), i.e. green-yellow, and red (R) filters. The diagram illustrates known color indices for all but the biggest objects (in slightly enhanced color). For reference, two moons: Triton and Phoebe, the centaur Pholus and the planet Mars are plotted (yellow labels, size not to scale). |
One clear notable fact derived from my below table is that neighboring Plutino's, in general, are 4.768 times darker than the average albedo of the four Pluto moons. The four small Pluto moons are collectively very bright. Averaging all their albedos produces a single average albedo of 0.65. The Plutino's, on the other hand, average albedo is 0.1363.
Something very different has taken place in the Pluto system compared to the Plutino group. Albedos can be an age gauge of sorts. Darker objects are older as they have had more time to be cooked by cosmic and solar radiation as long as those objects are dead (small). Since all of these objects are in the same basic location, they should have experienced the same basic levels of external radiation.
If surface radiation darkening is a linear process, then the Pluto moons are 4.768 times younger than the nearby Plutinos. If the nearby Plutinos are 4 billion years old then Pluto's small moons are roughly 840 million years old. I know this is a fairly loose age dating method but it demonstrates basically how far apart the age of these objects could be based on brightness alone.
Objects smaller than 400 km are darker than larger objects. This suggests larger objects seem to generate some method for resurfacing or are impacted more frequently due to increased mass exposing below surface whiter ices.
Something very different has taken place in the Pluto system compared to the Plutino group. Albedos can be an age gauge of sorts. Darker objects are older as they have had more time to be cooked by cosmic and solar radiation as long as those objects are dead (small). Since all of these objects are in the same basic location, they should have experienced the same basic levels of external radiation.
If surface radiation darkening is a linear process, then the Pluto moons are 4.768 times younger than the nearby Plutinos. If the nearby Plutinos are 4 billion years old then Pluto's small moons are roughly 840 million years old. I know this is a fairly loose age dating method but it demonstrates basically how far apart the age of these objects could be based on brightness alone.
Objects smaller than 400 km are darker than larger objects. This suggests larger objects seem to generate some method for resurfacing or are impacted more frequently due to increased mass exposing below surface whiter ices.
The albedo of Pluto's small moons are 4.8 times brighter than neighboring Plutinos and are gray or neutral
These tables show a couple interesting similarities among groups of KBO.
- The Pluto system is very bright indicating youthful surfaces.
- The Pluto system is primarily neutral in color with crystalline water ice surfaces.
- The Haumea collisional family average albedo closely matches that of the Pluto system
- The Haumea family objects are neutral, bright, crystalline water ice and young
- Plutinos on the other hand are dark indicating old surfaces
- Plutinos are a mix of red and neutral colored objects aka scattered disk objects mixed by Neptune
- Transneptunian binaries which are not Neptune resonant (influenced by) are red
- Transneptunian binaries are similar in darkness to Plutinos indicating old surfaces similarly in age to Plutinos
Albedo Enceladus=1.375, Earth=0.37, Moon=0.136, Comet 67P=0.06, Charcoal=0.04
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Small objects are dead and can be used as a relatively stable source for roughly calculating surface age based on darkness because the primary variant of their brightness is from external radiation depending on orbital distance from the Sun and impacts which occur less often than on larger objects.
Obviously when an object becomes totally black it can't get any blacker but if a group of objects are near black similar to what we observe on most small KBO (average KBO albedo = 0.06) while a nearby group are bright white then some rough age idea is strongly inferred. All the Plutinos in my above table are smaller than 400 km except Pluto and Ixion hence they are dead and stable and steadily darkened over time by cosmic and solar radiation. They are all getting baked at roughly the same rate by radiation because of their similar orbital location and all have low albedos. Contrast that with the small dead nearby moons of Pluto which shine like bright beacons. Comet 67P has an albedo of 0.06 which is in line with other small KBO, Earth's albedo is a mere 0.37, Pluto's small moons on average are 0.65 twice that of Earth. |
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Here's how this process looks with at least one other system of Transneptunian objects (TNO) called the Haumea collisional family. This family of objects has similar orbital parameters, albedos and color spectra.
This group of eleven objects make up a family of objects that have nearly identical color spectrum features displaying blue or neutral ice colors. The important columns in theses two tables are the V-R or Redness factor and the albedo. Their albedos are very bright averaging above 0.7 while their redness is very low meaning their surfaces are icy not covered with tholin or regolith. Wiki quote The Haumea or Haumean family is the only identified trans-Neptunian collisional family; that is, the only group of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with similar orbital parameters and spectra (nearly pure water-ice) that suggest they originated in the disruptive impact of a progenitor body. Calculations indicate that it is probably the only trans-Neptunian collisional family. |
Haumea objects are neutral (icy)
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Haumea family objects are bright almost exactly the same brightness level as Pluto's small moons
Wiki
Because it would have taken at least a billion years for the group to have diffused as far as it has, the collision that created the Haumea family is thought to have occurred very early in the Solar System's history. This conflicts with the findings of Rabinowitz and colleagues who found in their studies of the group that their surfaces were remarkably bright; their colour suggests that they have recently (i.e. within the last 100 million years) been resurfaced by fresh ice. Over a timescale as long as a billion years, energy from the Sun would have reddened and darkened their surfaces, and no plausible explanation has been found to account for their apparent youth.
Because it would have taken at least a billion years for the group to have diffused as far as it has, the collision that created the Haumea family is thought to have occurred very early in the Solar System's history. This conflicts with the findings of Rabinowitz and colleagues who found in their studies of the group that their surfaces were remarkably bright; their colour suggests that they have recently (i.e. within the last 100 million years) been resurfaced by fresh ice. Over a timescale as long as a billion years, energy from the Sun would have reddened and darkened their surfaces, and no plausible explanation has been found to account for their apparent youth.
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When New Horizons flew past Pluto they had a Student Dust Counter on board and they looked for dust particles but didn't find any.
In essence there's no evidence of a high number of local micrometeorites which could resurface Pluto's small moons even though this is how NASA suggests these moons became so bright. The only reasonable explanation for their collective bright albedos is that they were recently ejected off Pluto, Charon or both. I keep saying the small moons are bright because they are young this seems to me like a self evident and obvious concept. |
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NASA scientists refuse to accept this idea and so have doctored and altered crater counting data to suggest they "proved" the small moons are 4 billion years old. Then other scientists use this doctored "proof" to build new hypotheses constructed on a false foundation.
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Its frustrating to read a paper (like this one) that builds its backbone premise on a paper which I've already shown has altered, omitted and false regolith crater scaled data on Pluto's small moons page 67.
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Onward with my crystal balls
Mike Brown's paper makes an interesting statement and observation about the group of TNO's known as the Haumea family of objects.
Quote.
Irradiation studies suggest that crystalline water ice should turn to amorphous water ice on relatively short time scales unless some heating is applied to recrystallize the water ice. This 1.65 μm feature is thus often taken as evidence of some type of internal heating, from cryovolcanism (Jewitt & Luu 2004) to radioactivity and tidal forces (Dumas et al. 2011).
The fact that the 1.65 μm absorption can be seen even on Haumea family members as small as 1995 SM55, with an estimated size of 180 km in diameter (assuming an identical albedo to Haumea) demonstrates, however, that no such internal mechanism is required for the appearance of this feature.
These objects are far to small to maintain the liquid water beneath their surface that would be necessary to support any current cryovolcanism and as fragments of the icy mantle of Haumea they are thoroughly lacking in the rocks that would give rise to radioactive heating.
It seems clear, even if not understood, that the appearance of the 1.65 μm absorption feature of crystalline water ice does not contain any information about internal processes, but rather contains new information about the physics of crystallization under these conditions.
Apparently crystallized water ice is a very common feature on small bodies in our solar system and does not speak to internal heating or cryovolcanism. Ammonia hydrates, on the other hand may be a different story. This means I can toss out the 100,000 year time frame for creating the smooth surface of Charon's southern hemisphere. Along with that splatter painted ammonia on all the small moons indicates ammonia is not being brought to the surface from inside but is rather emplaced by an outside source.
Additionally small bright moons have no mechanism to stay bright, hence they are most likely broken ice chunks off larger objects.
Brown
Somewhere between the 650 km diameter of Ixion and the 900 km diameters of Quaoar and Orcus, KBOs appear to dramatically change in surface composition....Smaller than the 520 km size of 2005 RM43, however, no (non-Haumea family member) KBO
has been found with strong water ice absorption....between 500 and 700 km in diameter KBOs transition from typical surfaces of
small KBOs to those dominated by absorption due to water ice.
Charon with a 1,212 km diameter is well above this transitional range and hence would be expected to have the water ice signature as it does, but the small moons are a different story.
Here's the bottom line for me.
The small moons of Pluto are dead so they just sit around waiting for external processes to take effect,
processes like;
Mike Brown's paper makes an interesting statement and observation about the group of TNO's known as the Haumea family of objects.
Quote.
Irradiation studies suggest that crystalline water ice should turn to amorphous water ice on relatively short time scales unless some heating is applied to recrystallize the water ice. This 1.65 μm feature is thus often taken as evidence of some type of internal heating, from cryovolcanism (Jewitt & Luu 2004) to radioactivity and tidal forces (Dumas et al. 2011).
The fact that the 1.65 μm absorption can be seen even on Haumea family members as small as 1995 SM55, with an estimated size of 180 km in diameter (assuming an identical albedo to Haumea) demonstrates, however, that no such internal mechanism is required for the appearance of this feature.
These objects are far to small to maintain the liquid water beneath their surface that would be necessary to support any current cryovolcanism and as fragments of the icy mantle of Haumea they are thoroughly lacking in the rocks that would give rise to radioactive heating.
It seems clear, even if not understood, that the appearance of the 1.65 μm absorption feature of crystalline water ice does not contain any information about internal processes, but rather contains new information about the physics of crystallization under these conditions.
Apparently crystallized water ice is a very common feature on small bodies in our solar system and does not speak to internal heating or cryovolcanism. Ammonia hydrates, on the other hand may be a different story. This means I can toss out the 100,000 year time frame for creating the smooth surface of Charon's southern hemisphere. Along with that splatter painted ammonia on all the small moons indicates ammonia is not being brought to the surface from inside but is rather emplaced by an outside source.
Additionally small bright moons have no mechanism to stay bright, hence they are most likely broken ice chunks off larger objects.
Brown
Somewhere between the 650 km diameter of Ixion and the 900 km diameters of Quaoar and Orcus, KBOs appear to dramatically change in surface composition....Smaller than the 520 km size of 2005 RM43, however, no (non-Haumea family member) KBO
has been found with strong water ice absorption....between 500 and 700 km in diameter KBOs transition from typical surfaces of
small KBOs to those dominated by absorption due to water ice.
Charon with a 1,212 km diameter is well above this transitional range and hence would be expected to have the water ice signature as it does, but the small moons are a different story.
Here's the bottom line for me.
The small moons of Pluto are dead so they just sit around waiting for external processes to take effect,
processes like;
- impacts which happen infrequently because of their size and the rarity of objects at their distance from the Sun.
- cosmic and Solar radiation baking their surfaces.
- emplacement of N2 or NH3 during each Milankovitch cycle.
- When the object is large enough (Triton/Pluto size) it is bright because its able to geologically turn its icy surface over repeatedly like we see at Sputnik Planitia.
- When its near enough to a larger parent body (Saturn's moon Enceladus or Neptune's moon Triton) to receive tidal flex energy from its parent to turn over its icy surface.
- When the objects radius is smaller than 350 km it is dead and gets darker over time. Pluto's small moons are 11 to 45 km.
This paper
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of Charon Possible Evidence for Cryovolcanism on KUIPER BELT OBJECTS July 2007
When water ice is warmed to temperatures > 78 K, it then crystallizes, it only retains its crystalline structure on geologically short timescales (<1 Gyr). Given the typical heliocentric distances of KBOs, it is not possible to achieve such surface temperatures by solar heating alone. In addition to the mystery of how crystalline ice is created, there is the question of how it survives. The e-folding time for the amorphization of crystalline water ice by cosmic rays is about 1.5 Myr (Cooper et al. 2003) down to depths typically probed by infrared observations. Thus crystalline water ice must be replenished on these comparable, geologically short, timescales. In addition, ammonia hydrates are known to be decomposed by cosmic rays (Strazzulla & Palumbo 1998), such that their presence on the surface of an icy moon provides corroborating (although less restrictive) evidence for surface renewal.
The colder the temperature, the faster the transition process from crystalline to amorphous.
My Conclusions
- Since crystalline water ice is found on many other TNO's and KBO's it is not unique to Charon and the small moons so it is not a reliable date indicator of the event that created the smooth southern hemisphere on Charon.
- The ammonia hydrates are not common features found on other KBO's they do exist or are at least detectable on medium sized bodies of which Charon is one but is not found on small and large bodies throughout the solar system.
- The ammonia hydrates are found only on the leading hemisphere of Charon, indicating Charon's orbital spin is part of the ammonia's emplacement process.
- Visual evidence shows the ammonia is not a subsurface pressurized process driving it to the surface as the ammonia impact blotches look like paint ball splattered blobs. In some locations the ammonia appears to have been attached to a hard piece of water ice in other area's impact blobs appear to simply look like speckles or freckles.
- Ammonia is found on the small moons which are too small to have internal pressure pushing the ammonia to the surface.
- The ammonia must be emplaced on all the moons by an external process as the small moons are too small to have internal processes. This is the only reasonable explanation for all the moons having ammonia hydrate as it is photodissociated within 20 myr and can not be delivered to the surface from internal processes.
- Pluto's eccentric orbit and axial wobble precesses through Milankovitch cycles every 2.8 myr and its atmosphere's temperature and pressure reach nitrogen's triple point conditions.
- Nitrogen acts explosively while at triple point conditions
- The surface of Sputnik Planitia is an ocean of nitrogen and triple point conditions are the likely cause of the sublimation pits on Sputnik Planitia. These sublimation pits may be the points from which N2 is ejected off Pluto and into space. Three days latter Charon swings around colliding with the burped up blobs of N2 and or NH3.
- Molecular nitrogen (N2) can combine with H2O to form NH3 when N2 is ejected onto the surfaces of the moons. But it seems more likely the NH3 already exists on Pluto and is ejected off during triple point explosions. Either scenario would explain the NH3+H2O paint ball splatter effects seen on Charon's leading hemisphere and the ammonia hydrates detected on the smaller moons.
- Nix with its red tholin zit indicates tholin covered ice chunks can be ejected from Pluto with enough force to reach Nix's orbit this then also indicates ammonia or N2 could be delivered to the moons in the same manner.
- Neither crystallized water ice or the ammonia hydrate help date the age of the moons or Charon's smooth southern hemisphere.
- The albedo is the primary evidence the small moons are young. Other Plutinos in the neighborhood are on average 4.8 times darker than the small Pluto moons.
- The Haumea family of objects is considered by some scientists as young because of their collectively high albedos which is in excess of 0.7 If we ignore 2003 SQ317 the average Haumea family albedo is 0.73 making them less than 100 million years old. Pluto's small moon's albedos are 0.65 or darker and hence older than the Haumea family of objects.
- NASA scientists suggest micrometeorites impacting Pluto's small moons is why they are so icy bright. Micrometeorites would have the same cleaning effect on small dead neighboring Plutino's as on Pluto's moons if they were the cause of higher albedos, Plutinos are much darker with an average albedo of 0.1363 compared to Pluto's moons which are 0.65 hence micrometeorites do not explain the high albedo and spectral crystalline icy surfaces of Pluto's small moons.
- With only 3 & 11 impact crater counts utilized to age date Pluto's small moons, this method is unreliable and feeble if not a completely flawed dating method yet this is the crux of NASA's "proof" that the Pluto system is 4 byr old and of course the crater's were scaled by a factor of 2.1 reflecting a surface of regolith not crystalline ice even though its known their surfaces are bright crystalline ice. Then Kelsi Singer omitted more than half of the data points in here press conference.
- The wild rotation and lack of pole alignment of the Pluto small moons could be caused by Pluto/Charon rotation around a barycentric point in space this too means this is an unreliable method for age dating the system. Wildly spinning objects would infer youth but it is possible Charon's rotation is giving a pulsating kick to the small moons.
- They are not in resonance with each other this too could be an instability factor created by Charon or it could be a sign of youth.
- The small moons near perfect circular orbits are a weak indicator of their age if these moons were ejected off Pluto/Charon.
- The small moon's alignment with the equator of Pluto does tend to suggest the age of the system could be up around 850 myr to 1 byr. This along with the albedo may be the two best methods for identifying this system's age.
- Eight hundred and fifty million to one billion years is a possible age date for the small moons of Pluto but 3-4 billion is not because cosmic and solar radiation would have darkened their surfaces to match nearby similar local Plutinos.
- Regardless of size, classical KBO are red with tholin
- Neptune scattered disk objects are varied in color, eccentricity and inclination to the ecliptic plane suggesting they are a mixture of objects from 10 to 20 AU along with some from 40 to 50 AU pushed together by Neptune.
- Pluto and Triton were formed in the same Kuiper belt zone but Charon was not else it would be red and compositionally similar. Charon has no CH4, CO or N2 but does have NH3 while Pluto and Triton do not.
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Evidence for Crystalline Water and Ammonia Ices on Pluto's Satellite Charon Jan, 2000
Michael E. Brown, Wendy M. Calvin I just realized something after reading Mike Brown's paper, some of these scientists pretty much have this shit figured out. Sure they could use a little fresh perspective but Mike Brown and other NASA scientists' like him are on top of their game. However, One thing I notice when reading old outdated papers (in science, that could be 5 years) is just how much of their speculation turns out to be wrong. They get some things spot on but completely miss the mark on others. sorta like most human beings. |
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| the_surface_composition_of_large_kuiper_belt_object_2007_or10_1108.1418.pdf |
In this 2009 Mike Brown paper, Mike indicates Quaroar's diameter is 890 km (450 km radius) but its radius on Wiki is considered to be 555 km, while other recent papers put its radius at 675 km. So the slop factor range here is 450 km to 675 km. In 2009 when Mike was developing some comparisons between KBO he also considered Quaoar's density to be 4.2 g/cm3 its now considered to be 1.99 g/cm3. Mike also considers Quaoar's albedo to be 0.18, whereas, other figures put it at 0.109. These figures matter because speculative conclusion are drawn from them, then some hypotheses are developed from those conclusions and one error may be built on top of another. A density of 4.2 vs 1.99 will force vastly different conclusions about a body's composition.
I'm not trying to make anyone look bad, I'm trying to wake people up to the fact scientists no matter how smart (including Mike Brown) make mistakes then others build on that mistake as though simply quoting previous works is supportive evidence for new hypothesis.
I'm reminded of Elon Musk's philosophy
"I'm always to some degree wrong and the aspiration is to be less wrong. We are always to some degree wrong, it doesn't matter who you are. Trying to minimize the wrong headedness of the time, is the philosophy I believe in.
I'm not trying to make anyone look bad, I'm trying to wake people up to the fact scientists no matter how smart (including Mike Brown) make mistakes then others build on that mistake as though simply quoting previous works is supportive evidence for new hypothesis.
I'm reminded of Elon Musk's philosophy
"I'm always to some degree wrong and the aspiration is to be less wrong. We are always to some degree wrong, it doesn't matter who you are. Trying to minimize the wrong headedness of the time, is the philosophy I believe in.
